The powder-coating, especially painting, of articles and, in this connection again, especially the painting of vehicle bodies, has been gaining increasing interest in recent times. One especially important reason for this is eco-friendliness since no solvents, the disposal of which often entails a major outlay on apparatus, occur in the case of power-coating. In spite of this major, obvious advantage, only limited use of powder-coating has hitherto been made.
This is attributable to the fact that the powder contaminates all the flow paths on the way to the applying device, so that a considerable outlay on cleaning is needed when there is a change in the coating material, that is to say, for example, a change in the colour of the paint powder. Therefore, wherever articles are to be acted upon by different coating materials, especially different-coloured paint powders, in a multicoloured sequence, the use of powder-coating has hitherto still been somewhat uneconomic. The downtimes of the installation which are required for cleaning purposes when the coating material is changed are simply too long.
The present invention is directed to resolving these and other matters.